I’ve already asked Sensei Spock of the Flock (Facebook’s Llama 3.2) to find this movie for me, and s/he ended up giving me a virtual gold medal for “Most Elusive Movie Query”.
So let’s see if any of you can find it.
This movie I can’t remember the name of, but during the movie an ¿affluent? gentleman helps his lady friend not feel awkward at a dinner party by teaching her prepared responses to pretentious questions (including those having to do with “War and Peace” — unless I’m confusing two movies) using hand signals or something (I think he signaled numbers with his fingers) to indicate which rehearsed response to use. Can you name that movie?
I can’t remember why they needed to be at the dinner party. I can’t remember why he didn’t just pick someone he didn’t need to show how to talk in a non-awkward way that doesn’t stand out (was he a spy and needed someone no one would recognize? If he was training her to be a spy, it may be the movie Point of No Return… can you confirm or deny?). He seemed like a serious person. Nothing funny happened that I can recall, except for the fact that her prerehearsed answers were accepted as part of expected conversation, even though she didn’t know why.
I would love to see that movie again. Unfortunately, I have no idea about anything about that movie except for that one scene and the part where he explained to her what they were going to do. I don’t remember any of the rehearsed answers, or the context of the conversation that they happened in, and I am dying of curiosity.
The male character may have been Kevin Costner, but I don’t know that for sure. I already did a brief scan of his movies and nothing jumped out at me.
I’m thinking it was probably late ‘80s, early-to-mid ‘90s, and it was in color. Definitely not a thriller.